RICHLAND, Wash. –
The City of Richland is implementing a new Automatic Meter Infrastructure (AMI) to remotely check the electric and water meters.
People in Richland are seeing their utility costs rise significantly with the new AMI service.
Heather Torrescano says she has lived here multiple times throughout her life and these last few months have been the most expensive for utilities.
Torrescano says she got a new meter in August of 2022 and has since seen he monthly costs triple.
“My electric bill when I lived here previously never was over a hundred dollars,” says Torrescano. “But when my bills are three, four, five hundred dollars. No. Something is wrong.”
Many people in Richland are feeling the same frustration, according to the Residents of Richland Facebook Page.
City Manager Jon Amundson says the new automated system, that takes real time reads of the water and electric meters is still getting adjusted to the average utility usage throughout the year.
Amundson says the system is slightly inaccurate since it is still new, and the timing of the winter months with the system first launching has made billing inaccuracies seem much larger.
Amundson tells me those factors have actually been charging the people of Richland less than what the bills should have been.
“So no one is being accidentally over charged other than we are working through a couple technical challenges,” says Amundson. “20-thousand electric meters and 10-thousand water meters, there is some room for error.”
However, Torrescano says this new system is misreading her meter and charging her more.
She showed me her bill from July 2022 and the current meter reading the day before the bill. The bill shows her meter at 75460 kwh (kilowatt hour) and her meter at 75399 kwh.
“I was checking my bill against my meter and I noticed a huge discrepancy,” says Torrescano.
“If there are any discrepancies, and there has been any instance of overpaying,” says Amundson. “They will not be responsible for that. The city will make it right.”
The city also answered my questions about the different number of days on each billing period.
City of Richland Communications and Marketing manager Hollie Alexander says customers are generally billed on a 30 day cycle unless the city is waiting for confirmation to verify a meter reading before issuing a bill to make sure the information is accurate.
Amundson says he’s meeting with the Department Head of Energy Services, Assistant and Deputy City Managers and the Customer Service Manager every morning to address all the issues with the system and help the customers
“We want to thank the Richland residents for their patience and understand this is not the level of customer service we would anticipate delivering,” says Amundson. “We missed the mark and hope to gain back their trust but recognize we are doing everything we can to resolve this issue.”
Many people have expressed their feelings towards the city through social media and want to see action right away. Many of the community members I spoke with say they want to take this issue to the Attorney General’s office.
Torrescano says, “I won’t believe it until they start refunding people their money.”
The city responded to the people wanting to take this to the Attorney General’s office by saying it is going to fix this issue, but want to remind people this will take some time.
The city is pausing its installation of new meters for the next two weeks while the team they have assembled will work to solve the utility billing issue.
